Ganassi to use Panoz in road races

Ganassi announced that they would switch to the all-conquering Dallara chassis this season when they confirmed the signing of reigning IRL champion Dan Wheldon last November.

However, on the first day of road course testing at Homestead this week they ran the same Panoz chassis they have used for their last three years of IRL competition. They will continue to run them in further road course tests at the track next week.

The Dallara is the most popular chassis brand in the IRL presently. Only two other teams ran Panoz chassis during the test, with Rahal Letterman Racing's three driver's being joined by Delphi Fernandez Racing's Scott Sharp.

Team director Mike Hull confirmed they are committed to running their new Dallaras on ovals, and cited knowledge of the Panoz on road courses as the reason behind their decision.

"It was a team decision," said Hull. "We have a lot of information about the Panoz car, and we think the Panoz on a road track is a great race car. We've committed ourselves to running a Dallara car on all the ovals, but with the limited amount of testing we have with the series, we felt we should take things one step at a time."

It was Wheldon's first taste of the Panoz chassis. He drove a Dallara with his previous two teams, Panther Racing and Andretti Green Racing.

"The Panoz is different," Wheldon said. "It's still not quite to my liking. We're still working on I, and we'll get it there."

The team will revert to running Dallara chassis for the Sunday's oval test at the 1.5-mile speedway.